Category Archives: Education Councils

The ACUI Region Education Council is taking our popular Brown Bag Chats to the next level! Join us for a Google Hangout to discuss best practices, challenges, ideas, and issues with Internationalizing the College Union!

Discussion Topics to Include:

What does an internationalized student union look like? This brown bag chat will explore numerous themes to help create a truly international student union experience. What can we do to support an engaged and involved undergrad and graduate international student community?

As we renovate or rebuild our unions and bring the latest technology into our spaces, how can we enhance the international experience on our campuses through those processes?

What resources are available from ACUI to help our union better embrace the global experience? ACUI has an “Engaging Global Citizens” Resource Guide here: http://www.acui.org/resourceguides/ and ACUI recently hosted a webinar called “How do you support International Students?” which will help inform discussion as well!

We hope you and your colleagues will consider joining us for this summer’s ACUI Region 1 Drive-Around Tour! This year’s tour will feature facilities at schools from southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts, and will take place over two days, from July 16-17, 2013. In order to help you get a feel for what to expect, here are some of the planned highlights for the tour.

The program will start on Tuesday, July 16 at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH. Here, we’ll check out the Robert A. Freese Student Center, which underwent a full renovation, completed in December of 2012. Unique features include a student-run Pub, multi-functional student organization suite, and interfaith prayer room.

After lunch at SNHU, the tour will continue on to Keene State College in Keene, NH. Participants will be treated to a tour of the LP Young Student Center, with features including an overview of the Building Event Specialist Team and the Night Owl Café “Sizzler” lunch program.

Day Two of the tour will begin at Fitchburg State University in Fitchburg, MA. The main focus of this stop will be the Hammond Campus Center, a 200,000 square foot facility that is currently undergoing a full renovation. The space features a full student events/setup staff that handles over 4,000 events and meetings each year. In addition, the building is dual purpose, as it also houses a library.

Our final stop on the tour will be Merrimack College in North Andover, MA. Here, we’ll explore the Gladys Sakowich Campus Center and Anthony Sakowich Recreation Center, a 130,000 square foot facility that is the centerpiece of the campus. This building has a number of features, including a service learning center, a Pub, and multiple meeting rooms.

These are just a few of the highlights that will be featured in this summer’s Drive-Around Tour. There is certainly a whole lot more to see! We hope you’ll join us for one or both of the days. A one day tour is $30.00 for ACUI members, or you can attend both days for $50.00. Lunches are included for both tour days, in addition to small snacks. Participants can provide their own transportation or can opt to take a group bus for an extra $10.00 per person.

If you plan on attending both days, we recommend the Holiday Inn Express in Keene, NH for overnight accommodations (http://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/keene/). At the end of the second day, we will head back to Southern New Hampshire University to pick up any cars left on campus the first day.

The ACUI Region Education Council is taking our popular Brown Bag Chats to the next level! Join us for a Google Hangout to discuss best practices, challenges, ideas, and issues with outdoor programs.

We want to hear from you:
What does this l ook like at your institution?
What types of programs do you have?
What are the risk concerns?
Who coordinates and manages your outdoor programs?
Successes? Challenges?
Best Practices

What: ACUI Region 1 Commuter Services Brown Bag ChatWhen: Tuesday, April 2nd from 1-2pmWhere: Dial 209-647-1000. Once prompted, use the code 438046.How: A facilitator will ask some initial questions but the conversation and content will completely participant driven, so come prepared with your ideas and questions!

Can’t make it? Follow the conversation on Twitter using #acuir1. Notes from the call will also be taken and available to anyone who may be interested.

This past Thursday, December 13, the ACUI Region 1 Education Council hosted a Brown Bag Chat on the topic of “Work-Life Balance.” There were four people in attendance from a variety of institutions. The two main questions covered were: “What issues are you currently facing with work-like balance?” and “What are some solutions or ways to alleviate the work-life balance problem?”

For the first question, “What issues are you currently facing?” the discussion focused on work hours, technology, saying “no,” and maintaining friendships. In terms of hours, they discussed how programming and student support generally happen after usual business hours so it takes up a lot of their free time. Almost all of us can relate to that, especially within the programming world, so that was definitely a shared concern. This concern ties in to the issue of feeling guilty when saying “no” to helping students, supporting programs, as well as being unable to maintain or cultivate desired friendships. For new professionals and graduate students, the pressure to support all programs and say “yes” to everything is truly a challenge as they feel the need to prove themselves and dive in to every experience. The hard part comes later when you have to begin making the conscious effort to say “no” and to trust that a program will go well without your physical presence. What makes this issue more difficult is if there is an expectation from a supervisor that you will attend every program or fully support every student’s idea. This is even more challenging for those with one person offices or those with minimal staff as they have a much larger pool of responsibility on their shoulders.

The final discussion regarding the question of issues of work-life balance focused on technology and professional’s feeling of it dictating their lives/time. While having a smartphone or tablet device is extremely convenient for those “on-the-go” professionals and for those of us who have an interest in being connected through social media, it can be an anchor for others who feel that technology can provide an expectation that you will be available 24-7. Balancing personal and professional use of technology is an experience that every professional faces and is a discussion that should happen between you and your supervisor before it becomes an unconscious expectation.

The discussion following the second question, “What are some solutions to alleviate the work-life balance issues we face?” focused on personal responsibility and small ways each professional can make more of a balance between their personal and professional lives. The first lesson learned was about “letting go” of the guilt – it doesn’t help and it won’t hurt. Each of us are different in our approach to our professional life, as well as our personal lives, so the decisions we make must be pre-empted by not feeling guilty about making those decisions. Moving forward, having a conversation with your supervisor regarding your concerns about needing to find more balance is a must. If they don’t know you are struggling, they may continue to put more responsibility on your plate not knowing that it will cause you more angst. You may find that some of the expectations you thought were present are not true, which could alleviate a lot of the anxiety at work. Perhaps a discussion with your supervisor about creating a more flexible schedule to reflect your time spent in the office after regular business hours would allow you to come in later or leave earlier when you do have evening programs or meetings.

Finally, in terms of technology, being “connected” isn’t a priority for some professionals; and that’s OK. If you are feeling pressured by technology, try cutting some of it out. For example, if you have both your work email and personal email on your smartphone, and you want to use your phone for more personal use, take your work email account off of your phone so that you at least put a little distance between you and that means of communication. Only give your personal number to those students who would absolutely need it so that you aren’t feeling the pressure to answer every little question during your personal time. Take a break from Facebook or Twitter for a month to see if you can focus on more personal priorities if that is where the majority of your concern is coming from. You may find relief from just that simple solution!

To conclude, finding work-life balance is a unique and individual experience/decision for every professional. Your values, your situation, your supervisor, and your ethics will all come into play in this decision but, in the end, the balance is up to you and what you deem important for yourself.

Stay up-to-date with all ACUI Region 1 events on our website at http://region1.acui.org/Region/01/. We will be planning the regional events calendar for 2013 at our regional leadership team retreat in January so look for information about spring Brown Bag Chats and other regional programs in February! Have a happy holiday season and best wishes for the new year!

Are you looking for that elusive work-life balance? Do you want some tips and tricks on how to achieve a more healthy balance or your work and personal life? Are you stressed just thinking about all the things you have to do this week, next week, month or year? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then please join us for the next Brown Bag Chat!

Sincerely,
Region 1 Ed Council Team
Laura DaRos, Tufts University
Adam Dunbar, UMass-Lowell
Laura Rogalski, Western New England University
Tim St. John, University of New England
Gavin Telfer, Southern New Hampshire University

ACUI Region 1 and NACA Northeast are proud to announce the Student Government Workshop. This is a one day workshop designed for Student Government leaders and their advisors to allow them to connect, share ideas, and learn from one another.

The workshop will feature presenters from throughout the region on the following topics:
-Developing Professional Relationships with University Administration
-How to Run an Effective Meeting
-Effectively Promoting your SGA
-Parliamentary Procedure

As well as roundtable discussions with categories such as SGA executives, finance, event planning, marketing, and other SGA hot topics.

On Tuesday, August 7th, the ACUI Region 1 Education Council hosted a Brown Bag Chat on Student Employee Hiring Practices. We had a few institutions participate on the call, including: Worcester State University, the University of Connecticut, Tufts University and Western New England University.

The conversations that took place were extremely helpful for all institutional representatives and valuable information was shared. We discussed hiring procedures, timelines, application processes, marketing & recruiting strategies and more! As a Student Activities/Operations professional, it was very helpful to hear that some of our own procedures at a small, private university are on the same track as larger institutions and I was able to gain new ideas for our fall student employee fair.

Once again, this was a fantastic opportunity for Region 1 professionals to connect with colleagues at other institutions to share ideas, provide feedback on each other’s programs, and gain a new perspective on student employee hiring practices. If you would like to review the summary of notes from the chat, please follow the link below to access a Google Document of the meeting minutes(a Gmail account is not necessary to view the document):

We hope you join us for our next Brown Bag Chat scheduled for Wednesday, October 10th at 12:30pm on a Hot Topic that will be determined at a later date. If you have a topic request, feel free to Tweet your topic idea using #acuir1 or directly to @ACUIRegion1. If you do not use Twitter, please email laura.rogalski@wne.edu with your topic request.

We will start with those topics and go where the conversation takes us.

How it works:
Members from throughout the region will call in at 12:30. Introductions will take place followed by some guided conversation. Tim St. John from the Education Council Team will facilitate the call. Questions or discussion goals can be emailed to Laura DaRos at laura.daros@tufts.edu.

ACUI Region 1 Ed Council Team
Laura DaRos, Tufts University
Adam Dunbar, UMass-Lowell
Laura Rogalski, Western New England University
Tim St. John, University of New England
Gavin Telfer, Southern New Hampshire University

ACUI Region 1 and NACA Northeast are proud to announce the Student Government Workshop. This is a one day workshop designed for Student Government leaders and their advisors to allow them to connect, share ideas, and learn from one another.